No trivia or quizzes yet. Favorite quote – “The reason that one problem can be solved in multiple ways is that mathematics does not consist of isolated rules, but connected ideas.

Jul 01, Darin rated it really liked it Shelves: Some arguments are very strong and persuasive, but I doubt the children can fully standard knowing and teaching elementary mathematics liping ma.

The author is clearly able to explain how the American teachers tend to focus their teaching efforts on the procedures and algorithms to perform mathematical computations, but these are rigid and prone to error because the teachers don’t know why the procedures are necessary.

Tools, Plans, and a Process That Work Visualizing and Investigating Big Ideas, Grade 4. This book is a wonderful resource to use in order to learn about some more effective ways to teach math, conceptually, as well as a resource that points to many things that are not running as well as they should in math education in the US today. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Teaching conditions in the United States, unlike those in China, militate against mathemmatics development of elementary teachers’ mathematical knowledge and its organization for teaching.

I’ve been familiar with this classic for a long time and I consider it the best mathematics education book ever written. See and discover other items: Helped knowing and teaching elementary mathematics liping ma realize that although I have some strengths as a math teacher, I have so, so much to learn!

Their understanding of the mathematics they teach and–equally important–of the ways that elementary mathematics can be presented to students, continues to grow throughout their professional lives. Lists with This Book.

Through interviews with American and Chinese math teachers on four specific math topics, the author demonstrates that a large reason for the disparity in student scores s Elementtary book is someone’s dissertation, and although it’s been “dressed up” it still reads like one.

It is also quite horrifying to see some of the U.

This summer I assigned it to a student, so I had to read it myself. Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Four stars because it is a study, and a hard read. Excellent depiction of the difference between American and Chinese math education. Chinese students typically outperform U. This book didn’t get five stars for two reasons: Borrowing traditional term will illustrate standard subtraction procedure.

I was never taught this way and although I went on to get a bachelor’s and master’s degree in statistics, knowing and teaching elementary mathematics liping ma realized how much I could learn about arithmetic.

So not only are the US teachers unaware of how to effectively teach the concepts behind the formulas, but sometimes they don’t even know how to teach the formulas themselves. It may be a bit dry, but it is an excellent resource for those looking to improve their understanding of the important ideas in mzthematics in order to improve the way they teach.

I was never taught this way and although I went on to get a bachelor’s and master’s degree in statistics, never realiz I realized reading this book that my understanding of arithmetic is very incomplete.

Apparently, you can’t teach something well if you don’t understand it yourself! Jul 01, Laura rated it really liked it.

Read more Read less. It was written almost 10 years ago and I’d like knowing and teaching elementary mathematics liping ma think US teachers have improved their teaching of math in that time. What’s worse is that as the math presented to the teachers in the book gets harder, the US teacher’s procedural knowledge is also lacking.